• Skip to main content
  • Skip to header right navigation
  • Skip to site footer
  • WordPress
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube
Science Update

Science Update

Sharing Science | Satisfying Curiosity | Debunking BS

  • Spotlights
  • Reality Check
  • Why Is It?
  • Radio Archives
  • Sciup @ School
Home » Radio Archive » Daily Show » Invisibility Cloak

Invisibility Cloak

June 19, 2006
https://podcast.scienceupdate.com/060619_sciup_invi.mp3

Podcast: Play in new window

BOB HIRSHON (host):
Making invisibility possible. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

Within several years, invisibility cloaks could transfer from Harry Potter’s world to our own. This according to theoretical physicist John Pendry of Imperial College London. In the journal Science, he and his colleagues propose making such a cloak from high-tech meta-materials. Pendry explains that in a meta-material, the molecules are artificially re-organized to change the material’s physical properties: for example, the way it refracts and scatters light.

JOHN PENDRY (Imperial College London):
So instead of going in a straight line, it goes in a smooth curve around the object, and then returns to the same trajectory that it had before it hit the cloak.

HIRSHON:
If this still sounds like fantasy, Pendry points out that meta-materials invisible to radar already exist.

I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.

Category: Daily ShowTag: Engineering & Technology, Materials Science, Physics
Previous Post:Podcast
Next Post:Ape Planning

Sidebar

Radio Program Archives

Want to learn more about the brain? The environment? Here you can browse the topics that come up regularly on Science Update.

Search the Archives

Categories

  • Daily Show
  • Station Download
  • Weekly Show

Find By Tag

  • 2020
  • Acoustics & Sound
  • Aging
  • Animal Behavior
  • Anthropology
  • Archaeology
  • Astronomy & Space
  • Biology
  • Brain Science
  • Bugs
  • Cat Video
  • Chemistry
  • Children & Families
  • cicadas
  • Climate & Weather
  • Communications
  • Computer Science
  • Economics & Business
  • Education
  • Energy
  • Engineering & Technology
  • Environment & Conservation
  • Genetics & Evolution
  • Geology
  • Marine Science
  • Materials Science
  • Mathematics
  • Medicine & Health
  • Microbiology
  • Nanotechnology
  • NASA
  • Nutrition & Food Science
  • Paleontology & Dinosaurs
  • Physics
  • Plants & Agriculture
  • Political Science
  • Reality Check
  • Social & Behavioral Sciences
  • Sports & Fitness
  • spotlight
  • Spotlight Bugs
  • Terrorism & War
  • Why Is It? Questions
  • Wildlife
  • Year in Review

Find By Date

Science Update
  • About Science Update
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • YouTube

Recent Posts

Image of computer screen depicting an orange cat with a variety of alphanumeric scientific data superimposed on the the screen.
Spotted skunk performing handstand to threaten predators

Copyright © 2025 · Springtail Media LLC · All Rights Reserved · Powered by Pongos